by Joan Holub
Suddenly, Red was overcome by a coughing fit. “Are you okay?” Gretel interrupted herself to ask in concern. Red nodded, but at the same time she flicked her eyes meaningfully to something — or someone — beyond Gretel.
Gretel glanced over her shoulder. Uh-oh. Malorette and Odette, back from their forest trek, were standing right behind her! They both gave her super-sour looks before moving off toward the serving line to get their dinner.
It was clear they’d overheard what Gretel said about them, which made her feel kind of sorry. For two reasons: (1) because she didn’t like being mean to anyone, and (2) because now they knew she was talking to others about them and E.V.I.L. But thank goodness she hadn’t yet begun her story about what the sisters had said and her suspicions about them. If those two got an inkling that she suspected them of plotting trouble, they’d be way more careful to cover their tracks.
Then G.O.O.D. would have no chance of finding out what they were up to. Though the group didn’t have regularly scheduled meetings (they had, in fact, met only a few times after forming and not at all since Ms. Wicked’s disappearance), Gretel knew members would want to become more active if they believed E.V.I.L. was plotting trouble.
Despite her dislike and distrust of Malorette and Odette, Gretel felt another pang of regret. Even if what she’d said about them was true, she really didn’t like the idea that she might’ve hurt their feelings. Maybe she should apologize when she got the chance?
The conversation had moved on by now, but after a little while, Cinderella spoke to Gretel. “So, my evil stepsisters. Was there something else you wanted to say about them?”
Gretel nodded. But just as she was about to launch into the things she’d wanted to talk about earlier, Malorette and Odette approached with their dinner trays. Giving Gretel the stink eye, they plopped down on the bench only a few students over from her. Had they sat close by just to make sure she didn’t report on them to her friends? If so, their ploy worked.
“Uh … maybe later,” Gretel murmured to Cinderella. For the rest of the meal, she stayed quiet. Because every time she slid her eyes sideways to check, she caught one or the other of the sisters glaring at her.
As dinner was ending, the enormous hickory-wood grandfather clock on the balcony at the Pink Castle end of the Hall began to speak. (There was an actual face on the front of the clock, complete with eyes, a nose, and a mouth.)
“Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock strikes six.
Friends can now mix.
Hickory Dickory Dock.”
A mechanical mouse popped out of a little door above the clock’s face as soon as the rhyme ended. It squeaked cutely six times in a row to signal the hour, then six low-toned bongs echoed the hour throughout the rest of the Academy.
The bluebirds that had been flying back and forth through the open windows overhead suddenly dipped down to the tables. Working together in small groups, they picked up finished trays with their beaks and carried them off to the serving area. As always, they returned seconds later to set little silver bowls of water and new white linen napkins on the table in front of each student.
Gretel dipped her fingers into her bowl and then wiped them on her clean napkin. Afterward, in thanks for their service, she gave the birds a few cookie crumbs she’d saved for them.
Now everyone began to leave the Great Hall, off to mix with their friends, as the clock had put it. Most of the girls went toward Pink Castle, while the boys headed for Gray Castle. The girls Gretel had been sitting with had started to chatter about a catapulting game they planned to play on the rooftop courtyard that evening.
“Yeah, Rapunzel’s the one to beat. Our current distance champion. Her last catapult made it to the far side of Ice Island, remember?” Ice Island, a recent magical creation of Snowflake’s, sat in the middle of the Once Upon River right across from the Academy.
Gretel had been hoping for an opportunity to tell her friends more about Malorette and Odette. But unfortunately, she was painfully aware that those two sisters were walking directly behind her. Literally painfully aware. They’d been deliberately stepping on the heels of her boots every few steps as they all exited the Hall. She hadn’t meant to make them her enemies!
“I’ll catch up to you all later,” she finally told the other girls as they reached the foot of the grand staircase and started upward. Summoning her courage, she then turned to face the sour sisters. “Just wanted to say I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings at dinner. I didn’t mean to,” she told them sweetly.
Identical looks of surprise at her pleasant attitude crossed the sisters’ faces but were soon replaced by their customary sneers. “Whatever,” said Odette.
Malorette leaned in. “I think the three of us need to have a little chat. Somewhere private. Follow us.” With that, she started down the hallway, and Odette gestured for Gretel to walk with them.
Gretel gulped. “Um. Okay.” Feeling uneasy, she nevertheless followed the sisters down the hall. What was this going to be about? Nothing good, probably.
Malorette and Odette stopped outside the door to the classroom where Ms. Wicked had taught before her disappearance, er, escape. She’d taught Scrying, which was the art of using crystal balls and other reflective surfaces such as mirrors to predict the future.
After casting her sister a secretive look, Malorette said to Gretel, “We can talk in here.” She reached out and tried to turn the knob.
To Gretel’s relief, the door was locked. “Guess we’ll have to talk somewhere else. Maybe just here in the hall? No one’s around.” She really didn’t want to go into Ms. Wicked’s old classroom — or any other private space — with these two.
However, Malorette only grinned. “Not a problem.” She produced a key from the pocket of her dark-blue velvet gown and promptly unlocked the door.
As Gretel reluctantly followed the sisters inside the classroom, she wondered briefly if Malorette had stolen the key from the office. But it was also possible that Ms. Wicked had given it to her some time ago. After all, the three of them had always been as thick as thieves. Maybe the teacher had even given them the key that very afternoon, if that’s who they’d met in the forest before dinner!
Gretel shivered at the thought and gazed around the room. “It’s creepy in here,” she murmured, which made the sisters smile.
No one had been hired to replace Ms. Wicked yet. Since her students had been transferred to other classes, the room had an unused feeling about it. It was dim and dusty, and cobwebs were beginning to form here and there high in the corners.
But in other ways the room was the same as always. The square student tables still stood in the exact same places they’d always been for Scrying. And crystal balls of various sizes still sat on shelves, while small square mirrors about the size of playing cards hung in rows from little silver nails on the far wall.
Ms. Wicked’s desk remained in its usual spot at the front of the classroom, along with a glass-fronted cabinet full of her strange books. In short, the room’s contents were exactly the same as before the teacher’s disappearance. Except that all of her many large mirrors were missing, including the one she’d used to write assignments on in red lipstick.
“Too bad about the mirrors,” Odette said with a sigh.
“Yeah, I miss them,” said Malorette, gazing around.
Rumor had it that all these missing mirrors, and even more from Ms. Wicked’s living quarters, had been moved to an ice castle on Snowflake’s Ice Island. The mirrors were later destroyed when the castle collapsed.
“Good riddance, I say,” Gretel mumbled.
“What?” asked Odette.
“Nothing,” said Gretel, giving her a fake smile. With bravado, she added, “So you wanted to talk?”
Malorette patted her poofy black hairdo while motioning with her other hand toward one of the square tables. “Sit,” she said to Gretel.
Feeling a little jittery, Gretel pulled o
ut one of the chairs at the table and sat. Her eyes went to the door, which was closed now. Odette came to stand over her, as if to make sure she didn’t try to bolt for the exit. What were they plotting?
As Odette stood guard, Malorette wandered over to one of the shelves and picked up a crystal ball about the size of a grapefruit. Tossing it casually from hand to hand as if it were some kind of plaything, instead of a powerful magical object, she came back to the table and sat down across from Gretel.
“Your tower task in Pearl Tower is Pathfinder, right?” she asked.
The way Malorette was holding the crystal ball, Gretel could actually see herself reflected in it. Her braid was a mess with strands pulling free. It really needed a good brushing and rebraiding, she decided. But for now, she just finger-combed the strands back.
“Uh-huh,” she replied. At the same time, she wondered how Malorette knew what her tower task was. The two sisters roomed together in Ruby Tower, and Gretel had no idea what their tasks were. Probably Trouble Causers, or Mischief Makers. She grinned at the idea.
“What’s so funny?” Odette demanded. When Gretel just shrugged, Odette took the ball from her sister and set it in the center of the table. Then she sat, too, on Gretel’s other side.
“And so you like to hike around a lot, right?” Malorette continued to Gretel. When she spoke she leaned forward, bringing her mouth so close to the ball that it was almost like she was speaking into it. Weird!
After Gretel nodded, Odette added, “We’ve seen you out and about with your brother and those twins with the pail.” She leaned closer to the ball when she spoke, too.
“Yeah. Jack and Jill,” Gretel informed them, wondering why these sisters had dragged her into this room just to play Twenty Questions.
But then Malorette told her, “Our pathfinding skills are not that great. We’re looking for someone who can follow a trail better than we can. And we’re wondering if that someone might be you?”
“Huh?” Gretel looked from one sister to the other in confusion. Then she started to laugh. “Oh! Ha-ha-ha. I get it! You think my tower task as Pathfinder means I lead other girls in my dorm on hiking paths around Grimmlandia?”
Odette frowned and looked over at Malorette, nudging the crystal ball closer to Gretel. “Well, isn’t that what you do?” she asked.
Gretel’s eyes were momentarily drawn to the ball and she startled for a split second, thinking she’d glimpsed a face inside it. Not hers, though. A face that looked a lot like Mistress Hagscorch! But in a split second there was nothing but smooth glass again. This creeped-out room must be making her imagination work overtime, she decided.
“Nuh-uh,” Gretel finally said in answer to Odette’s question. “Sorry, my task as Pathfinder is to help girls who aren’t getting along well find paths to friendship.”
Malorette leaped from her chair. Going over to Odette, she thumped her sister hard on the shoulder. “You idiot!” she screeched. “Why didn’t you check what her Pathfinder duties were?”
“Ow!” yelled Odette, jumping up, too. “That hurt!” She grabbed a fistful of her sister’s dark hair and started to pull. “Why would I check? She hikes! You knew that!”
Gretel stood up. “Whoa!” she said, leaning toward the sisters. “Looks like you might benefit from my Pathfinder skills after all. How about letting go of Malorette’s hair, Odette? Then you can each take five steps apart and breathe deeply a few times.”
“Ha!” snorted Odette. But she did release her sister’s hair.
Malorette straightened up, pushing her tousled hair back into its usual poof again. “We don’t need any of your relationship-fixing mumbo jumbo,” she told Gretel with a sniff. “Just tell us one thing. Can you find your way down a trail or not?”
“Course I can,” said Gretel.
“Okay. Good,” said Odette. Cupping both of her hands around the crystal ball, she lifted it from the table and stepped closer to Gretel. “We’ve got a job for you, then.”
Gretel arched an eyebrow. “What? You want me to take you hiking?”
Odette and Malorette grinned at each other. Apparently, all was fine between them again. “That’s exactly what we want,” said Malorette as Odette handed off the ball to her.
Odette looked into Gretel’s eyes. “Only we have to know if we can trust you. Can we?”
Malorette held the ball up high. “Because the path we want to find is a secret one,” she added.
Odette smiled at Gretel. “And it goes to a secret place so magically beautiful you’ll hardly believe it!”
Malorette nodded excitedly. “A place where colorful birds sing in lush gardens, and —”
“— and waterfalls tumble down cliffs of gold!” Odette finished.
“Really?” Gretel’s heart began to beat fast. Despite not being as brave as she’d like to be, she’d always craved exploration and adventure. Finding such a fab place as they were describing would be grimmcredible! She could list it and the trail leading to it in the supplement she was planning to write. It would give her no small satisfaction to outdo her bossy older brother with such a find. But the girls had said it was secret. Hmm.
Doubt tugged at her. She moved toward the teacher’s desk, just to put some distance between her and the sisters. “If it’s such a secret path and place, then how do you know about it?” she asked with her back to them.
When she turned around again, she jerked her head in surprise. Because the sisters had rushed over and were holding the crystal ball so close to her it was almost like they wanted her to take a bite out of it. She took a quick step back.
“We … uh … learned about it from Mr. Hump-Dumpty,” Odette informed Gretel. “He drew us a map.”
Malorette reached into her pocket and pulled out a hand-drawn sketch on a piece of vellum paper. She dropped it onto Ms. Wicked’s desk and set the crystal ball beside it. “Take a look.”
While Gretel studied the crudely drawn map, Odette nervously wandered to where the Scrying mirrors hung and gave them a little push to set them swaying. When they brushed up against one another, they made a tinkling sound like wind chimes.
Gretel looked up from the map. “What’s NWF?” She pointed to letters inked inside a big circle through which a curving line of dashes ran. (She figured the dashes were meant to represent the path.)
“Neverwood Forest,” Malorette translated.
Gretel gasped. “But Mr. Hump-Dumpty is always warning everybody to stay away from that forest. It’s dangerous!” In fact, she’d often heard their Grimm History teacher call it “a place no one ever visited and lived to tell about afterward.”
“Grimmhooey,” Malorette said calmly. “Mr. Hump-Dumpty goes there all the time himself.”
“He does?” Gretel said in surprise. She’d hardly ever seen the big egg-shaped teacher outside the school grounds, and she’d definitely never seen him near the forest. But since she rarely went near the forest herself, why would she?
After giving the little mirrors one last push to set them tinkling again, Odette crossed back to the teacher’s desk. With a sideways glance at her sister, she said, “Can you blame him for wanting to keep such a beautiful place all to himself? If lots of students went tramping around in the forest, it wouldn’t stay secret for long.”
Malorette nodded in agreement. Then, sneering at Gretel, she said, “But maybe you’re too afraid to go into the forest.” She grinned over at her sister. “Maybe we should ask someone older and braver to help us.” She wrinkled her forehead as if considering other possible candidates. Then she snapped her fingers. “I know! We’ll ask Hansel! He’s more mature than Gretel, and he’s probably a better hiker, too.”
Gretel felt her cheeks redden hotly. “I am not afraid,” she fibbed. “And I’m just as good a hiker as Hansel.”
Malorette folded her arms and stared hard at her. “Then prove it.”
“Okay! When do you want to go?” Gretel blustered.
“Tomorrow morning at nine,” Odette answered quic
kly.
“But you can’t tell anyone where we’re going,” Malorette cautioned as she snatched back her map. “Mr. Hump-Dumpty made us promise we wouldn’t tell anyone about his secret place. If he knew we’d told you, he’d get really ticked off.”
“Okay,” Gretel agreed, though she couldn’t imagine Mr. Hump-Dumpty getting ticked off about anything. He was most definitely a worrywart, but she’d never seen him get angry.
At her agreement, the sisters seemed to decide their business was finished for now. Malorette went over and set the crystal ball back on the shelf she’d taken it from. Then she and Odette headed for the door. Gretel followed them out and Malorette locked the door behind them. “Tomorrow, then,” she said curtly to Gretel. Without another word, she and Odette took off down the hall.
Gretel went the opposite way. While climbing the grand staircase, she mulled over what the sisters had told her.
Some of it she wasn’t sure she believed. If Mr. Hump-Dumpty really did have a secret place, it seemed unlikely he’d tell those two girls about it. Unless they’d tricked him somehow? Or maybe they’d stolen the map from his desk without his knowledge? No, unfortunately, it seemed much more likely that the secret place simply didn’t exist. It was a little too good to be true even if magical things did happen in Grimmlandia all the time.
She thought briefly of sending the sisters a bluebird note and telling them she’d changed her mind about going hiking with them. But something stopped her. What if the magical place really did exist? If she backed out, they might take Hansel there. Then he’d be all superior because he got to see the secret place instead of her. No, as long as it wasn’t raining tomorrow, she would go.
As she started up the twisty stairs to join her real friends, Gretel could hear them laughing and shouting up on the rooftop courtyard as they catapulted things from it toward the river. She’d better put off telling the members of G.O.O.D. or anyone else anything for now, she decided. Like Hansel, they might try to talk her out of going with Malorette and Odette. If it turned out those two were indeed up to some kind of real mischief, she would report it after their hike.